Yet another T&L blog?

We thought there was room for something a bit more…playful. Something less formal. Maybe even irreverent. We think that there’s space for a group of like-minded South African educators to get together and shoot the breeze without needing to worry about who is watching and who you represent. A place where you can cut loose and say what you think. Where you can challenge the status quo and where you don’t have to conform. We think that there is room for debate and discussion that is institution-independent and we think that this could be that space.

I recently began working on a project called Unteaching, with a few other people in South African higher education. We’re interested in trying to build a conversation around rethinking teaching and learning practices in a way that was oriented to the local context, with our unique facilitators and challenges. At the moment it’s just a WordPress blog but we’re kind of figuring it out as we go along, so things may change.

In thinking about a few guiding principles, I couldn’t help but keep coming back to this advertising campaign for the original Mac computers. We wanted this community to be different and to represent in some way the ideals and enthusiasm for change that could be reflected in thindividual stories and experiences of people who are doing for eat work in the classroom but who don’t have the opportunities to publish or present at conferences.